Monday, April 10, 2017

Trump meets Xi in Florida

Donald Trump and Xi Jinping made a face-to-face meeting for the first time in Florida.

They both seem to have enjoyed the conference. Trump commented that their relationship developed in this session was outstanding. Xi, as well, emphasized the outcome of the meeting.

The themes of their negotiation, however, were almost limited to business. They mentioned the four dialogues; the diplomatic and security dialogue, the comprehensive economic dialogue, the law enforcement and cybersecurity dialogue, and the social and cultures issues dialogue.

Taiwan was relieved not to hear aggressive speeches about One-China policy from Trump's mouth. Trump previously fluttered about the idea of the existence of Taiwan. At first, he threatened China as he would not be stuck to One-China policy if China does not adhere the American policy on trades. But after that, his policy might be modified. In this conference, Trump avoided mentioning this issue explicitly.

At the same time, Trump expressed proudness about a recent airstrike on Syria. Xi accepted the attack at the conference. But this attitude is inconsistent with China's concurrent stance supporting Assad administration.

In my opinion, Trump has no particular policy in the diplomatic point of view. Rather, other nations are excessively influenced by Trump's difficult words. After all, many countries have to keep an eye to Trump's behaviors. Thus, the current situation is indirectly advantageous to the US.

On the other hand, the issue of the Middle East crisis is no more treatable by the US or other single nation. A cooperative strategy is required to ease the situation. Although losing the territories, ISIS is continuously committing terror attacks. I do not believe a solitary move of the US, as well as the UK and France, would be able to fix the crisis.